Dry garlic chutney
This garlic chutney is for garlic and spice lovers. The spicy, tangy and garlicky kick is not only perfect for dosas, idlis but also goes very well with mumbai’s most loved street food - vada pav. As I always like adding new flavours to my food, this garlic chutney is a combination of garlic, groundnut, flax and niger seeds.
Niger seeds (or as we call karale in marathi and uchellu in kannada) are immunity boosters, reduce inflammation and are great sleeping aids. But they absolutely taste boring, and feels gritty when eaten on their own. Add these to the usual garlic chutney and you will never know, it had any niger seeds. so now, I have sneaked something healthy in the chutney and yet the taste isn’t compromised due to the strong flavours of garlic and peanuts.
Flax seeds are shiny, nutty seeds that have an earthy aroma with a high content of omega-3 fatty acid. Finding creative ways to add them to the daily diet can be a challenge. The best way to consume is to add ground flaxseeds into muffin, cookie or bread recipes. I also add them to idlis and dosas once in a while. Soak a handful of flax seeds along with other lentils and blend them together. The nutty taste of these seeds gives this chutney an additional flavour and increase the health quotient.
Since this is a dry chutney powder, you need a powerful blender or a mixer to blend everything together. Toasting all the ingredients will help to breakdown the ingredients easily and quicker to blend.
What you’ll need :
2/3 cup dry coconut powder
1 cup peeled garlic
1/2 cup groundnuts
1/3 cup each of niger and flax seeds
15 red chillies
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 tbsp asafoetida
1 marble sized tamarind
Salt as per taste
How to :
All the ingredients need to be dry roasted separately in a non stick pan with 2-3 drops of coconut oil. Dry roast them in the order mentioned below on low heat, allow to cool and blend each ingredient separately to a fine powder. The blender should be absolutely dry before you start. Any moisture will reduce the shelf life of the chutney.
1. Flax seeds are nutty and release oil on roasting. So dry roast it first without any oil for 2-3 minutes until it starts to sputter.
2. Dry roast groundnuts for 2-3 minutes until the skin peels off or brown spots appear on them.
3. Add 2 drops of oil to the pan and dry roast niger seeds for 2 minutes
4. Next add the red chillies and add around 2 tsp of oil and roast them. Roast until the chillies turn shiny and fragrant
5. Add 2 tbsp of coconut oil and the raw garlic in the pan and roast it for around 6-7 minutes. Toss them every now and then until they turn golden brown
6. Finally add the coconut powder and toss them for 30 seconds until they turn golden brown. Turn off the heat and add asafoetida
It’s necessary to blend every ingredient separately as they all have different textures. Flax seeds and niger seeds blend in no time while peanuts take a much longer time to make a fine powder. Garlic on the other hand, doesn't take a long time to blend but it gets a bit messy and sticks to the inside of the blender. So make sure to blend it at the very end. Blend the chillies, coconut powder, asafoetida, salt and tamarind together. Add all of them to a big bowl and mix uniformly. Make 2-3 portions of the mixture and again blend them so that all the ingredients mix well. Taste the chutney and adjust the salt. Store in an air tight container and refrigerate for 1-2 months.
